What's Wrong With A National Cultural Policy?

http://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/article.asp?idart=11859

As I read this article on finding new ways to encourage the arts, my head started to spin. So many different cultural organizations, large and small, vying for consumer attention and money. Those art organizations that do manage to get public funding are attacked when showing controversial subjects. Some so-called artists bring that on themselves when they show a pile of garbage in a corner and call it art.

This article considers a national policy on culture but then likens it to old Soviet-style politics, " you WILL do things our way," not the way to inspire cooperation in freedom-loving Americans.

A simple, umbrella-type organization that catalogs all the little organizations in a searchable database is all that is needed. Search by type (dance, art, writing) or by area (East, Midwest) or by sponsor (company, arts organization) and a policy statement that says it promotes all the arts for people from cradle to grave.

Can a Minstry of Culture work in this country????

Arts and Cultural Organizations Offering Hurricane Assistance

While current relief efforts focus on immediate health care and survival needs for victims of hurricane Katrina, arts organizations are planning their own relief efforts.

For further information, click here:
http://ww3.artsusa.org/get_involved/membership/katrina/default_001.asp